"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?"
Federico Calboli

Monday, August 06, 2012

John Keegan, RIP

The New York Times reported his death yesterday. As the Times obituary states he was widely regarded as "the pre-eminent military historian of his era" and authored more than 20 books. An Englishman, he taught at Sandhurst and was the military affairs editor of The Telegraph for many years. His later books sometimes took a critical beating, partly because he was opinionated, partly because some didn't like his approach to popular history, and partly because he wasn't always politically correct. In any case, anyone insterested at all in military history should read his book The Face of Battle which is indispensable.

I met him once in the 1980s, and he seemed genuinely nice in person. I really like his writing, but he makes the occasional blooper. For example, I think he had Thomas Jefferson (or some president) visiting Bent's Fort, or something off-the-wall like that. And there was something about his Little Bighorn account too. On the other hand, where he walked the ground, as in the Peninsular Campaign in the Civil War, he's dead on.